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“Lainey?” I take a slow step toward her, afraid that she’ll disappear if I move too fast. “Lainey?”
She’s as shocked as I am.
Her eyes drift over me—my dark-framed glasses, the collared shirt beneath a light gray sweater—I look a little different than I did over the summer. But then her shiny lips spread into a smile that’s so bright and beautiful—I feel it right in my dick.
“Dean? Oh my God, Dean?”
This is exactly how Danny Zuko must’ve felt when he saw Sandy again in Grease.
“Holy shit!” I exclaim.
We move forward at the same time, evaporating the space that separates us. And our hug is the easiest, most natural thing in the world. I wrap my arms tight around her lower back and lift her right off her feet.
There’s an excellent chance I may never let her go.
I thought my memory had overplayed how good Lainey felt in my arms—that my mind had exaggerated the perfect way her curves fit all snug and soft right against me. But I didn’t imagine it—it’s every bit as good—better, than I remember.
She looks up at me, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I can’t—what are you doing here?”
“I teach here.”
“You’re a teacher?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you were a drummer?”
“I’m both.” I laugh, cause this is nuts. “What are you doing here?”
“My son goes here. Jason.”
“Jason Burrows is your kid? You’re Jason Burrows’s mom?”
I knew that—obviously—she just said it. But my short-circuiting brain needs the confirmation.
“Yeah.” Lainey laughs too.
Women are complicated creatures. They want you to want them, but—at least in the beginning—they don’t want you to want them too much. Too much interest, availability, eagerness . . . it’s a turnoff. Playing it cool is always the safer move. A little mystery, a little aloofness, keeps them hanging on.
I know this game. I’m good at this game. I’ve been playing it without fail since I was fourteen years old. But in this moment, all those rules go straight out the window, and the God’s honest truth spills from my lips.
“I can’t believe you’re here. I’ve been thinking about you. Jesus, you have no idea. I haven’t stopped—”
My words cut off quick.
Because that’s when I feel it—when it registers that Lainey’s lower abdomen is pressing against my hip. That it’s different from the flat, tiny waist I worshiped with my tongue and hands four months ago.
Very different.
It’s distended. Hard. Round.
I look down between us. Lainey’s wearing black yoga pants and this tied, layered navy and white shirt number that makes her tits look fantastic, and hugs her tight around the hips—accentuating the unmistakable bulge protruding beneath it.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about you too, Dean,” Lainey confesses in a whisper.
It’s . . . a bump. That’s what I’m looking at. Maybe she’s bloated—or decided to eat a small soccer ball for dinner? It could happen.
The downside of being really smart is that it’s almost impossible to delude yourself, no matter how much you want to drown in that ignorant bliss. It takes a nanosecond to discard those theories and recognize the obvious conclusion.
And when that happens—my brain becomes a ghost town.
I take a step back. And then I take another one—just in case.
I point at her stomach. “Is that . . . ?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you . . . ?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
Nope, still can’t deal.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I point to myself.
“Is it . . . ?”
And the whole world slants, like the floor of one of those Tilt-A-Whirl carnival rides we used to ride over and over until we threw up.
Lainey looks at me gently, her eyes light, her voice tender.
“Yes . . . it’s yours.”
When I was seventeen I got slammed by a three-hundred forty pound linemen who got drafted to the NFL the following year. It was a blind hit, I never saw it coming—it knocked my helmet off, knocked the breath out of my lungs, and left me unconscious on the field for four minutes.
This hits harder.
“Are you sure?”
She twists her fingers together in front of the bump.
“You’re the only person I’ve had sex with in five years.”
“Damn. That’s pretty sure.”
“Yeah.” She nods.
“But we used condoms. We used a whole . . .”
“A whole box of condoms.” Lainey throws up her hands. “I know! That’s what I said. The sperm and egg apparently didn’t get that message. And there’s this whole ripping the condom open with your teeth statistic that’s gonna blow your mind, but . . . maybe . . . maybe you should sit down, Dean? You don’t look so well.”
The pregnant woman is telling me to sit down—this is where we are now.
“That’s probably a good idea.”
And yet, I don’t move an inch. My central nervous system has been frozen by the shock.
“I tried to find you,” she explains. “To tell you. But the band doesn’t have a website and the bar was closed and . . .”
“We don’t advertise.” My words are hollow and flat, answering on autopilot. “Since we only play in the summers, we don’t take on new gigs.”
